The Road to Sanctuary
by Hatter and Hare Productions
Summary: A long road, no fast travel, a whole bottle of whiskey and an unlimited supply of ammo. Friendship, purpose, and more blooms in the most unlikely of places.


"You really can't hit the broad side of a thresher, can you?" Hammerlock asked, doing his best to stay on the road as skags bounded after them. He was a rather apt driver, but even he was having a hard time not hitting the debris and rubbish in the roads of the Dust.

"No! I can shoot fine!" Gaige didn't want to admit that the only time she did deliver the killing shot to a thresher it was because it caught the bullet mid-spasm. Back to the present, she slammed the ammo belt into the machine gun, shutting the port and unleashing hell upon the skags. Soon there was nothing left but offal for the desert to mummify.

"Guessing from the lack of shooting I'm guessing you've dispatched them off?" He chimed back.

"Yeah, they're toast," she said, flushed cheeks. "Fuck this desert!" she loudly proclaimed, climbing back into the vehicle's passenger side. She put her feet up on the dash, looking out over the sands. "Whoever blew up the Hyperion Corp's ship was an asshole,"

"Yes, the momentary lack of fast travel is frustrating," Hammerlock admitted, "but Lilith is promising we'll have them back on in monthly. Until then, let's enjoy this romp through Pandora's finest…"

Gaige was silent. Looking over the desert, she was thoroughly lost in thought. Rather quickly too. He kept his peace and kept driving on, the desert sun pouring on the vehicle. They had a few days out left, so long as the locals didn't give them too hard a time. He didn't expect this all to happen – he was on the other side of Pandora when it fell down. Lilith called him back, wishing to re-consolidate her forces before the next big push to liberate Pandora. Mordecai also called him, saying he wanted Hammerlock to return his bottle of off-world whiskey Hammerlock had taken on the road. It was a packing mistake, in his defense, and it was also bad manners for Mordecai to leave his finer alcohols over the place.

Gaige was stranded as well, but rather than travel with Axton she elected to go with him. This was very un-Gaige behavior if he'd ever seen it. Axton was like an old brother to her; to her he was just the giver of bounties.

The mystery would continue, he supposed, as he swerved to avoid the giant mound of burning corpses the pyschos had left in the middle of the road.

* * *

The night was the only break from the sun, and the only chance they had to catch a break before the next leg of the journey. In the planet of Pandora, shutting your eyes once could mean you never open them up again. Thus, they chose to drive awake and rest silently at night.

Hammerlock set up camp tucked away in the side of a massive rock, away from all prying eyes. Gaige helped him set up a perimeter, and they were even able to use Deathtrap as extra guard duty. Hidden away and safe, Hammerlock allowed himself to sit down and work on some writings for his next almanac.

"What's it about?" Gaige asked.

" _The Civilizations of Pandora_ ," he proudly chimed, continuing to scribble away.

"Isn't that an oxymoron?" she asked.

"Only if you actually know Pandora like we do," he replied, "But being as no one actually wants to come here, we're in luck. There'll be plenty of inactive, middle-class citizens looking for some level of escapism."

"Escapism would be nice," she noted, before sitting down on a crate and looking out over the desert. "It's surprisingly calm for a Pandoran night,"

"I hate the silence," Hammerlock confessed, "all I can then is the minutiae of movements, and then comes the quite real feeling I'm probably being watched by something bigger than me."

Gaige looked at him. "At this rate, if you start setting up mines, I'll start calling you Axton 2.0."

Hammerlock gave a light chuckle. "One can't help it. Nature is not our friend; it's our best frenemy."

The young engineer gave a chuckle. "Yeah…guess that's why books are better than the real thing."

Hammerlock shrugged, "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,"

"Roosevelt," Gaige remarked, impressed, "of course you'd know him."

"I'm surprised you do,"

The young woman gave a smile. "I can read too, y'know."

"You never struck me as a girl- "

"Women" Gaige corrected, a slight flush in her face. "I'm 18."

Hammerlock stopped. "My apologies."

She nodded. "I'm sorry for cutting you off."

"It's quite alright," he replied, "All I was going to say was you don't seem to be the woman who had trouble in school."

The wind whistled over the plains.

"Well, books are easy. People are hard." Gaige finished her bottle of water. "Wake me up when…when it's my turn to do guard."

* * *

The road went on. Nothing to do but drive. It was Gaige's turn, and while she was not as eloquent of a driver as Hammerlock she managed. Only a few bandits tried to stop them, but Hammerlock could peck the wings off a fly.

Ejecting his latest spent round, he reloaded.

"Do you ever get tired of the killing?" Gaige said.

Hammerlock felt like he had just been asked whether he ever would go down on Handsome Jack. "Not quite, Miss Gaige. It's more a matter of cleaning up pests than murdering my fellow man…do you?"

Gaige drove on stoically.

* * *

"What is the matter?" he asked her that night, as he placed a log on the fire and continued to rotate the skag leg.

"Nothing's the matter." She replied.

"Forgive my disbelief; it's just when the girl who's whole marketing brand was 'Anarchy, Unicorns, and Death Machines' asks me if I'm tired of killing, I have to ask why the sudden philosophical bent?"

"It's not philosophy. It's…. Eden-5 is an awful place. It's a police state run by jack-asses with more money than brain cells. No one's really free to be themselves. It made one wish murder was legal."

"I can relate to that feeling,"

"But here it is, and it's terrible," Gaige's tone sharpened, "Everyone here is broken, and the parts are missing to fix them. We're just all so fucked up, and we've got nowhere to go but rust."

"Man is an animal, Miss Gaige," he replied, "no matter where he goes, he's bound to act according to flawed but effective instincts."

"Man could be better," Gaige countered, "Man could feed everyone, heal everything, make everything right. But life's not a machine,"

"And no one is perfect." Hammerlock noted, "but Pandora is, slowly, getting better."

Gaige laid back on her cot. She gazed at the stars above, a sky clean and deep. "There was this Lieutenant guy – Reiss. We had to go rescue him when we first started working with Roland and…he said 'wake me up when I'm not on Pandora anymore. Then he died from his wounds."

Hammerlock bowed his head. "Indeed".

"He didn't have to die," Gaige said. "He didn't have to be here, fighting everyday until he got fucked up by a bunch of fuckers. Someone had the option. Someone had the choice to do the right thing, but no one did."

"That's why we fight," Hammerlock replied, "to do the right thing, to make sure other innocents are not lost to the error of man nor the worse of nature."

"So…" Gaige turned to look at him, "when does the fight end?"

Hell, if he knew. Hell was really all he knew now, it felt. Driving through the dust felt like an Inferno, and everywhere he looked he saw Francesca and Paola paying for their flawed actions. Empty factories, vacant prison facilities, the huts and forts and grisly trophies of the bandits that roamed this land. Once men, now beast.

"I am tired of the killing, Gaige," he said, he eyes planted firmly down the road. "and I don't know when the fight will end. In a way, we have to admit we fight against human nature, and that is an eternal war so long as we are human."

Gaige stood up in her seat, producing a rocket launcher from the back. "Yeah, victims of our circumstances" She replied, aiming down the road. "But if man can ascend from dirt and into space, can't he ascend to god?"

Hammerlock laughed, "Only if he seeks to be rid himself the glory of being scarred."

"I don't mean we can't strive; only that we can do better than animal." The rocket was let loose, swirling down the road.

"We are doing better," Hammerlock countered, "If by better we set the standard low enough we can actually reach it; not being always instinctually driven. Having and applying imagination. Unfortunately, we are the flesh; to live separately from that is not to live at all,"

The rocket's arrival was met with a scream of pain. The stalker didn't know what hit it. Gaige frowned. "So, then you don't think we have souls?"

"If so, it lies beyond the shadow of death." Gaige stirred the stalker stew as Hammerlock continued to speak and write. " _Characteristically, willie-nilly we seem compelled to project our own nature onto nature."_

"Sagan?" Gaige asked.

"Correct;" Hammerlock spoke. "So, I do all I can in my power not to confuse the energy of life with the nobility of man. A thresher is magnificent; it is also a dangerous invasive species" that he may or not may not have something to do with being on Pandora.

Gaige continued to stir. "I'm older than Marcy ever was," she said out-loud.

"Who's Marcy?"

"A girl I went to high school went. She was the one who Deathtrap…well, she was my first kill indirectly."

"Oh…" Hammerlock realized his own lack of ability in this matter. "I'm sorry," was the best he could muster.

"Yeah, well…she was a bitch, but she was a product of her environment. A victim of circumstance." Gaige grabbed a bowl and poured it out for Hammerlock. "And a few days ago, I just started thinking…well…where's the justice for her? For me? For anyone? I haven't seen my dad in almost a year; I doubt I'll ever get to see him again." She poured herself a bowl and sat next to Hammerlock. "I miss him."

Hammerlock remained silent, figuring his silence was better than any words he could speak.

"I can handle the killing; hell, I'm a fucking junkie for it now," she gave a quick laugh, "but maybe that's Pandora in me now. Like a cancer I can't quite sweat out. I look back on Marcy, and it's like all my killing seems to be born from this one mistake. Like I'm no better than all the other sickos on this planet."

"Well…" Hammerlock mulled his words over, "You are choosing to value life more than devalue it. You kill for a reason; you stop from more killing from occurring."

"Yeah, of course, but in principle it's still a fucked-up act."

"It's nature's way,"

"Nature's a bitch"

"Indeed" and he took a sip of his soup. He suddenly realized Gaige was sitting right next to him. She'd never done that before, other than in the car but that was out of necessity. "But we must be careful to only apply our morals to ourselves and not to nature; we can't ask a rock to do more than a rock can. We shouldn't therefore ask the thresher or the storm to be what they are. We can only deal with them with the best overall interest in mind."

Gaige leaned her head on his shoulder, a vacant glare off into the fire. "Guess that makes me a murderer now, huh?"

Hammerlock sucked in his soup in surprise. "Um…no. You are…do you remember that time when you fixed the water filter in Sanctuary?"

"Yeah," and she let a smile cross her face, "and you were there too. We were the only ones who knew how to fix the stupid thing."

"Well, one act of murder does make one a murder, but one act of kindness also can make a saint. I believe we are more than just one aspect of our lives; we are constantly changing elements of nature, like how water changes states of matter."

"So, then what do we do with this unwanted life?" she asked.

Hammerlock sighed, "We live. We live and we love and we do what we can to be happy. Even if that fails, at least we will _never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat_."

Gaige was quiet. A minute passed where only the wind and the skags howling could be heard, and then she sat up and looked at him. "Your name is Alistair, right?"

Hammerlock was momentarily surprised "Yes."

"Are you okay with me calling you that?" Gaige's eyes darted away for a moment when she asked.

"…yes, but why are you asking?'

Gaige took a breath. "I'm 19 as of today – happy fucking birthday to me, I know," and she waved a hand to the desert before her, "and I…don't know. I'm older than Marcy, but there's no promise I'll survive until my 20th birthday. I don't mean to sound pathetic but…" she took a breath. "When we get to back to Sanctuary, can you give me shooting lessons?"

"Of course," he said, and he was surprised by remarkably gentle he sounded. "Gaige, are you sure there's more going on in you than just a matter of existential crisis?"

She looked away, then turned away and walked to the other side of the campfire. "I know I'm just a young girl to you but…I'm also an adult. I've been all over this mess of a rock and there's no real promise of anything other than today. I feel old; all my old friends and enemies are going to college and I'm here roughing it. I just want…someone to be there for me."

"Gaige…I'm not exactly that type of man- "

"I know," she spoke up, "I'm not going to force you to be what you aren't," she said, "but I just need someone more. Maya and Axton watch out for me, and I've got friends but…no one to hold me. Inspire me. No one to stay up late and talk to me about Sagan and Roosevelt and what's best in life. Who can help me fix water filters and keep my eye on the target. We don't need to be lovers; I just need a…" she stopped, uncertain, the exact word was lost to the sands. Through the fire she seemed – in his eyes – like a woman in her own private inferno.

* * *

"So, what happened to be my bottle of whiskey?" Mordecai asked when Hammerlock walked back into the bar. He sat down from across the sniper and sighed.

"Must have fallen out of the back when we were driving." He replied. He motioned to the waitress, who brought them two beers. "I'll pay you back, chum. Just for now…let's live in the moment."


End file.
